Hey guys! While I salvage inspiration for The Return, I found myself coming up with the idea for this. The story is set over the span of a few months till the epilogue of Allegiant.
Hope you enjoy!
Salvation
His search ended by the train tracks, where the grass was dull and drooping from being trodden over far too many times, and yet long enough to be swaying gently in the gust of wind that the train left as it rushed by. The man was sitting, his knees folded and legs pulled against his chest, so close to the tracks that if he were a few inches closer, the train would take away his feet or his arms or his nose with it. His jacket flapped in the wind as dust flew from the tracks, his short hair rippling like a field of dark brown grass assaulted by a storm.
Caleb Prior stared at the man who sat with his back turned to him with distinct discomfiture. He shifted his weight from his left foot to the right, then from his right foot to the left. Then he straightened his shirt out and dusted it rather unnecessarily. And then he cleared his throat as loudly as he could.
The train, passing with its almighty thundering which caused the ground around the tracks to tremble, chose that very moment to blow its horn. Caleb resisted the urge to clap his hands over his ears as they rang from the cacophony. He had always been interested in the workings of the train and even in the mechanism of the horn (he had learnt about it by borrowing books from the Erudite even before he turned sixteen) but that didn't mean that the means of transport charmed him a lot. Especially since he had to jump onto and off a running train all those months – a couple of years ago. Time had never felt so slow, such a long time in passing. And yet at the same time, all those moments, a stranger's memory almost, felt vague, distant and dream-like.
The sound of the horn faded away in the distance, and the rumbling stopped. The silence left behind felt almost intrusive. Caleb sighed, about to utter a cough again to gain the man's attention (because unfortunately but surely, his earlier attempt had been submerged by the train's horn, damn it) when the man spoke.
"What do you want, Caleb?" His voice was flat. He didn't turn around.
Caleb took a deep breath. He didn't like to admit it even to himself, but ever since they had met, Tobias Eaton, or Four as he once went by, had always intimidated him to some extent.
"I – was looking for Cara," Caleb said haltingly.
Tobias didn't turn around. "And why would it appear to you that she is with me?" His voice contained no bite, no anger, and yet Caleb almost wished it would; this deathly quiet, toneless voice of Marcus' son was somehow much worse than that. It cut through the wind, and through Caleb, like a knife.
"She wanted to work on the fear serum and find out more about its properties. So… she said she'll talk to you." Caleb felt stupid as he stumbled through his explanation.
Tobias finally looked at him. His face was blank. Carefully blank. Caleb struggled to meet his eyes. "No," Tobias said shortly. "We didn't meet. But the stash is in the Dauntless compound, and someone else could easily have told her that."
"Oh." Caleb nodded jerkily. "Uh. Right." He turned to walk away. He knew he had overstayed his welcome the moment he came to stand behind Tobias.
"Caleb." Tobias' voice made him freeze.
"Yes?"
"The serum store is in the Pire, second floor, room 10. If you want to know." The same lack of tone, the same lack of expression. Save the slight movement of his lips, he looked like a statue, frozen in position with his arms folded. Caleb sighed.
"Thank you."
Tobias nodded curtly, and turned around. A clear dismissal. Caleb Prior accepted it with bittersweet strides.
Once Caleb Prior's steps had faded into the distance, Tobias' shoulders slumped, the tension he had not even been aware of draining out of him. He did not like the very sight of Caleb Prior. No, he hated it. Alright, he'd better stick to did not like. Tobias knew himself as a man of short temper and long grudges, and admitting, even to himself, that he outright hated someone was not good, both for that person's wellbeing and his own.
It had been nearly two years since he lost her, and to this day, whenever he saw Caleb Prior, the only question that rose to the forefront of his brain was why. Why was he alive, alive and breathing and how dare he live in this city with them – when she was dead, dead and cold, reduced to ashes which he still couldn't let go. He still saw her at frequent intervals in the fear landscape room, in her last moments, a painful and yet obsessive pastime he had developed. And he saw her in yet another way – in Caleb. While Tris was alive, all Tobias had seen was how very different the siblings were; but now that her memory was left in the recesses of his brain – and that was all that was left of her – he was at leisure to notice the bits of Tris in Caleb, a dimmed, slighter, lack-luster version. With his green eyes and chestnut hair and his awkward gait, Caleb Prior was a mosaic representation of the dead – Natalie Prior's brilliant eyes and dimples, Andrew Prior's hair and that hooked nose. But most of all, he reminded Tobias of Tris – of her hooked, prominent nose and her dimpled cheeks when she smiled ever so brilliantly – the smattering of freckles over the nose, the downward curve of the lips. These similarities struck him far too often, and not in a sad-but-fond-memory way, but in a solid-punch-to-the-gut way. It always made him think how it was wrong, twisted, unfair – that it should have been her here, sitting beside him by the train tracks, laughing with him and pressing a tentative kiss to his lips, not him standing behind him because he wanted to get some information about some goddamn research, stumbling awkwardly with his queries. He was supposed to be the one, damn it, he was supposed to die. But Tris…Tris… Tobias growled low in his throat, his anger throbbing at his temple, and with a savage tug, uprooted a clump of dry grass. His growl choked and morphed into a broken sob. The tears came, lasted seconds, and went away. He always knew that was what happened. It had happened too many times in his life.
He stared down at the mixed color of his clothing – the familiar black of the jacket, the Erudite blue of the jeans, the gray shirt underneath – as he rose and dusted his clothes with mechanical precision and disinterest; he looked at the new buildings and the seats installed in the compartments as another train made its way past him. She had made all this possible, and yet she wasn't here to see the new city, the newly unfurled world. Cara had said that she was planning on leaving the city, to Indiana-whatsit and Philadel-whatever. She planned to move around, find out what lay around them. Perhaps Tris would have liked to travel. She had always been a curious one.
Tobias sighed as he slowly trudged to wherever his feet would lead him. He wished he could just stop thinking about her for a while; it just hurt so much. He also wished, he thought as his eyes strayed to the footprints that had been left in the grass only minutes ago, that he would never have to see Caleb Prior again. Or that he would at least stop seeing Tris and thinking about her death and placing blames when he did.
-o0o-
Caleb's apartment was exactly as he liked it – less space for emotion, more for science and research. After returning to Chicago, Cara and he had taken up apartments near Millennium Park, in what had once been Erudite. Even after the dissolution of the factions, the Erudite area had remained the brain of the city, with its laboratories and research equipment. It was where Caleb spent most of his time; he could work himself till he was weary, and methods and concepts helped keep unwanted emotions away. He walked back to his apartment from the lab. The first person that stared at him as he flicked on the light in his bedroom was Tris.
The framed photo had stood on the desk in their parents' room. Caleb was not a person to cling to emotions and memories, but he had gone back to the empty gray house where he had once lived one last time, after they returned from the Bureau. He had discovered the picture as it stood half covered in dust and cobwebs. It contained the two of them – his sister and him, laughing at each other, around seven or eight years old, their faces half away from the camera. The Abnegation never clicked pictures, which was why the presence of the picture had surprised him. But he had realized with a lump in his throat that despite them leaving, their parents had loved them both till the end. It would cause the pit of guilt in his stomach to grow deeper.
Now, if he tried, he couldn't for the love of all that was good figure out why he had acted the way he had. Until they went out to the Bureau, he had been convinced of the truth of Jeanine's words. But now, he did not know what was right, and he gave up thinking about it. But that didn't change that his sister was dead, and it was his fault. Sometimes he wished that she would hit him again, paint his skin blue, green and purple with bruises, because that would mean that she was alive, that she was awake and fierce as ever. Through their childhood, he would never really have called themselves close, busy as he was in acquiring knowledge and simultaneously hiding it, but in the Bureau, looking back at all that he had done, he just came to the conclusion that he missed his sister. That day when they were alone, when she had laughed and talked to him one last time, it had felt achingly, heart-breakingly delightful. Then, he had been sad because he thought he was about to die. But he hadn't and yet they could never talk like that ever again. Caleb clenched his fists, his head bowing. It wasn't often that he let his emotions through, but whenever he did, he always came to the conclusion that he hated himself. He had killed their father, he had killed their mother, he had almost killed Tris, so many times. And yet he had never really meant to. He had shut his eyes with the notion of the greater good and sacrifices. And in the end, she showed it to him. She showed him the meaning of sacrifice for the greater good; she let him live and died for him, after everything. She died forgiving him. When he thought of these things, Caleb appreciated how lowly and pathetic he was.
Tris' friends made that very clear, too. Zeke, Shauna and Christina were invariably frosty towards him. Amar and George acted neutrally towards him, having no bad blood between them in the past. Matthew and Cara were the ones who treated him better than the rest, almost as a friend. They were all pursuers of science; their common interests brought them close. And then there was Four. Caleb could feel the temperature drop palpably whenever they met. Caleb wanted to make his peace with him, but had no idea how to, or if it would ever be possible. His feeble attempts at smiling were always met with an icy stare of the midnight blue eyes. Whenever Caleb happened to be in the same room as him, Tobias would leave at the earliest possible instant. It made Caleb feel even worse; it reminded him how widespread the effects of Tris' death had been. Sometimes, it made a ghostly voice whisper in his ear, "It should have been you."
It wasn't like Caleb was completely friendless; he had a healthy enough relationship with his lab partners, but this deliberate coldness from the only group that held a connection with Tris hurt. Caleb didn't know why, but it did.
Heaving a sigh, Caleb roughly passed his hand over cheeks, wiping away the treacherous tears that had escaped his eyes, and looking one last time at Beatrice's laughing face, shuffled off to bed.
-o0o-
Someone was screaming. He opened his eyes and shot up into a sitting position at the sound, but it was only when Tobias felt the burning raggedness in his larynx and shut his mouth, effectively causing silence to set in, that he realized that the person screaming was him. He was breathing hard, his body trembling. His neck ached from being placed at an awkward angle on the armrest of his couch.
"Four!" The room swam back into focus at the sound of Zeke's startled voice and the pattering of his feet as he rushed into Tobias' line of sight. Moments later, Shauna slowly wheeled herself in.
"We heard you screaming," Zeke said, grabbing hold of Shauna's wheelchair and pushing her closer more quickly, before sitting down on the couch next to Tobias. "What happened?"
"Nothing." Tobias' voice was still rough; he cleared his throat. "Just a nightmare. I didn't realize –" He didn't know when he had fallen asleep. The last thing he knew was that he was sitting on the couch, trying to read a book on administration and city welfare while Zeke and Shauna hunted for dinner in the kitchen. He lived alone now, in an apartment in the newly constructed parts of the city, since his mother had wanted to stay away from the city for the while. Zeke and Shauna often visited, though, as well as Christina and Amar.
"We saw that you had dozed off, and thought you'd need some rest, so we let you be," Shauna said. Her eyes softened. "Was it her?"
Bowing his head, Tobias nodded. Of course it was her. It was always her. For the last two years, all of his nightmares had contained Tris. Her dying, her lying still, breathing shallow. And he was too late to save her. Always too late.
"It'll ease away with time, mate," Zeke said quietly. Tobias nodded feebly, not knowing what to say. Zeke's friendship was among the ones Tobias valued the most – it was the most tried. For the first year after Uriah's death, things had been somewhat rough between them, but eventually Zeke had returned to his old self, their friendship mended. He had never once blamed Tobias. Tobias was yet to grasp how he could do it. It was his fault after all. But he had accepted Zeke and Shauna's friendship with gratitude. He needed them.
All of them had lost someone important to them in the war – Christina had lost Will, Zeke had lost Uriah, Shauna had lost Lynn, and Tobias… he felt that he lost a part of himself. He supposed they all felt similarly.
Suddenly, a knock sounded at his door. Tobias started to get up, but Zeke beat him to it. "I'll get it," he said with an easy smile. Moments later, however, the smile had dropped from his face as the uncertain green eyes of Caleb Prior stared at them from the door.
The silence stretched, tight and awkward. Caleb gulped, pinned yet again by the dark blue eyes, suddenly feelingless, staring at him from the couch.
"I –" Caleb began.
"I think I need a bit of fresh air," Tobias said, his voice tight. "I'll be back in a while. Don't hold up dinner on my account."
"Tobias – Four, wait!" Shauna cried helplessly, but Tobias had already brushed past Zeke and Caleb and was out of his apartment.
The remaining silence was even more awkward, if it were possible. Caleb lowered his head and sighed.
"Well, if you wanted Four, you can see that he is gone," Zeke said coldly. "Come back later, brother."
"No, actually I wanted to see you," Caleb said, looking at Shauna.
Shauna stared, dumbfounded. "Me?"
"Yes." Hesitatingly, he crossed the threshold into the apartment. "I have an idea which will help you. If you're up for it, I'll need to make some measurements."
-o0o-
The clock showed twenty minutes past three in the morning. The light of the laboratory was still on. Jeffrey Stilton walked in, rubbing at his eyes. He stared at the figure bend over the strips of metals and the wires, the iridescent flame of the small welding torch blinding the eye.
"Honestly, Caleb? Did you look at the time? It's nearly morning, dude. Get some sleep."
Caleb straightened up and looked at his coworker distractedly. "I'm about done," he said vaguely, his gaze returning to the machinery he was working on almost immediately. "Just have to fuse this –"
"Didn't you hear us? Stan and I told you we'd resume work in the morning," Jeff said exasperatedly. "It will be done in two days."
Caleb shook his head. "I want it ready tomorrow, and I will have it that way."
"Why?"
Caleb looked at him. "You don't understand, Jeff. It's Choosing Day tomorrow," he explained.
Jeff looked unaffected. "So? Someone ordered you to have it delivered by then? You should have told us before, man."
Caleb pursed his lips. Jeff was a man from Minneapolis, one of the people who had migrated to and settled in Chicago after it became open to the world again. He was mostly ignorant about the customs of their previous faction system, and certainly ignorant of the emotions it commanded in the residents of the city. "No, it's a gift," he said. He sighed. "They are going to scatter my sister's ashes tomorrow." Christina had called him yesterday; it had been a short and curt conversation. "Tobias is getting Tris' ashes from the Bureau," she had said. "If you want to turn up, be there at Hancock building." And that had been all. Caleb had told her that he would meet them near the end of the line. He did not really want to go by train, at least not by running up to it somewhere in the middle of the line, no thanks. And then he had called Shauna and asked to see her earlier next morning.
"Well, what of that? It's not like you are going to use these contraptions on your sister, are you? She's dead." He stopped at the look on Caleb's face. "Sorry, that was insensitive."
Caleb stops himself from agreeing with difficulty. "Just go back to sleep, Jeff. I'll be done with this shortly."
Jeffrey hesitated. "Are you sure –"
"Yes, I am. Just go." Caleb watched as Jeffrey left with a shrug, before getting to work again. He himself did not know why he needed to finish this by tomorrow, but he felt he did. His purpose behind this project was not just an accomplishment in science. Caleb wanted to go back and undo all his mistakes. But since it wasn't possible, he was trying his best to make up for them. He wanted to, for once, have someone smile at him properly, he wanted to feel worth something once again. He wanted to earn Beatrice's forgiveness. He wasn't a believer in heaven and hell, but he wanted that if Tris looked down from that somewhere, if there was one, she should look down on him with a smile.
The night gave way to dawn, and Caleb Prior kept working.
-o0o-
"There you go," Caleb said as he fixed the last piece again Shauna's legs. The machinery went all the way from her feet to her hips. "Now, try and stand up for me."
"I – I am not sure –" Shauna, who had been staring, stunned and a little afraid as Caleb worked, now looked positively petrified.
"Come on, Shauna, you can do this," Zeke, standing at her side, encouraged. "What happened to the girl that wasn't scared of anything? Oh, wait, I remember that cockroach incident. Now, Caleb, did you know –"
"Don't you dare," Shauna warned viciously, her face turning red. "I'm doing it." And with the hardening of her jaw, she slowly, very slowly, moved, little by little getting out of the wheelchair. Caleb and Zeke helped her up, until she was standing completely straight.
"I – I'm standing," she whispered. "I – I – Zeke, look at me, I'm standing!" Her voice rose to a scream.
"Yes, babe! Oh God, look at you. That's my girl!" Zeke laughed, and in a swift move, picked her up and spun her around.
Caleb winced. "That, actually, isn't a very good idea –" But he couldn't stop smiling as well.
At length, Zeke placed Shauna back on her feet. With tentative steps, she reached Caleb, and wrapped him in a tight hug. "Thank you," she whispered. "This means a lot."
Caleb couldn't trust himself to speak through the lump in his throat, so he just smiled and nodded. "It wasn't just me," he managed. "My coworkers helped."
Zeke hugged him too, taking him by surprise. His hold was surprisingly fierce and tight. "Thank, bud," he whispered, and Caleb was shocked to feel the wetness against his cheek. "You know," Zeke said softly once he had let go, "it was Tris who gave us strength when Shauna got paralyzed. I – I had thought that that was the end, it was all over… but Tris said that Shauna had to keep going. That she would move in a wheelchair and still fire a gun if she wanted, and that she had to go on." He looked away. Caleb took that opportunity to blink back the tears collecting under his lashes.
"Don't stand too long at a stretch. Baby steps will do it. You know," Caleb spoke up again, looking at Shauna. "If you keep going, my friends say, one day you might run again."
"Hm," Shauna said, but her eyes were bright with tears and a smile on her trembling lips as Zeke eased her back into the chair, "And what do you say?"
Caleb smiled. "I couldn't agree more with them"
The looks on Zeke and Shauna's faces made his day. For the first time, Caleb Prior realized the truth of the values the Abnegation had preached; he discovered the joy his parents had felt in giving.
-o0o-
Caleb didn't climb up the Hancock Building along with the rest of their group. He met them as he was supposed to at the end of the line, and for the first time felt no hostility from them – Zeke and Shauna smiled at him too. And now he stood on the street, watching as one by one, they dropped from the zipline – Matthew, screaming as if the devil were after him, then Christina. Caleb watched as she fixed her hair, and then looked at him.
"I saw what you did for Shauna," she said with a small smile, her eyes bright. "Tris would have loved it, and loved you for it." Caleb simply smiled, opening his mouth to say something which he later forgot, when Matthew said, "Here he comes."
There was no need to question who he was. Even from the great height, Caleb heard Four scream, a rare sound, and as the small black dot dropped closer and closer, becoming larger every second and taking a human shape, Caleb saw the gray flakes fluttering out and floating in the air. His sister. Free, even in death, like she had always wanted to be.
Finally, Tobias dropped from the zipline, into the human net they had created with their arms, his feet colliding with the ground with a thud as he straightened. For some time, there was a reverent silence. No one broke it. Caleb saw Christina blink back tears. He could feel his eyes burning too. Tobias was looking up at the Hancock building with wonder in his eyes. Then he looked down, his eyes locking with Caleb's. Caleb offered a cautious smile, unsure of the reaction he would get.
For the first time in forever, Tobias Eaton smiled back at him. Despite the sadness in his heart, Caleb smiled wider, more freely.
Perhaps they would never be friends, but this was a start. And in this smile, Caleb finally found peace, and the strength and knowledge that they were all, in a way, moving on.
From above, perhaps his sister was smiling at them. It was a nice thought.